Constancy
by Beautiful Thief
Summary: He never really did forgive her for stealing his first kiss that day back when they were eleven and he didn't know it was a thing that he wanted.


the childhood friends au probably no one wanted. I didn't know I wanted it until Crissy and I needed emergency fluff because I wrote the fourth Between Breaths ficlet, and she picked a cute au from the prompt list.

This is not meant to be a serious analysis of the kind of personality/world changes that result because of the au, mostly because that would be a monster fic and THIS WAS JUST SUPPOSED TO BE A LITTLE FLUFFY THING WHERE DID 4.4K WORDS COME FROM.

As should probably be expected, this is dedicated to cimberelly for being wonderful and bearing through all the angsty fic I've been writing lately. Hehe.

* * *

Ryouta and his family move into the house next to Daiki's when Daiki and Satsuki are three, so even though they all know that there was a time when Ryouta wasn't with them, none of them can really remember it. Their earliest memories include all three of them, whether its tea-parties at Satsuki's house, driving toy cars and trucks around the sand pit at Ryouta's house on the occasions that they've managed to escape torture at the hands of Ryouta's horrible monster sisters, or basketball at the nearby park.

* * *

When he's eight years old, Daiki comes to the conclusion that being the best friend of both Ryouta and Satsuki is hard.

For example, even though Ryouta's a boy too, everyone's always telling Daiki _he_ has to look after Ryouta. It's both of their jobs to look after Satsuki, but its _Daiki's_ job to look after Ryouta.

Daiki found that annoying.

(He'd asked once why he needed to look after him, and the adults had looked at each other and just reminded him not to talk to strangers.)

Another reason was that Ryouta could be a bit of a cry-baby sometimes – more than Satsuki, it was usually Ryouta who would tap on the glass of Daiki's window at night if he couldn't sleep because his sisters had let him watch a scary movie. The first time it'd happened, Ryouta's parents had freaked, because their baby boy was gone from his bed in the morning. They'd gotten an awful lot of scolding when Ryouta was found huddled down in Daiki's bed with him, and Daiki was still bitter that he'd gotten an unnecessary yelling at, because it wasn't _his_ fault that Ryouta had come and slept in his bed.

(Next time, it'd been the first place they'd looked, and after a while it just became a matter of sending someone to double check that Ryouta was exactly where they expected him to be; in his own bed, or in Daiki's.)

And _also_, it was often the case that going to get Ryouta to play with meant having Satsuki stolen away by the monster sisters, and having to try and sneakily get Ryouta out of the dresses his sisters had teamed up to put him in. It wasn't unusual for Ryouta to wander (or run) over to Daiki's house with his face covered in glitter and his hair in ponytails with cute hair ties and ribbons, or sparkly hairclips. Sometimes fetching Ryouta simply meant having to wait out Ryouta's sisters, because Satsuki positively loved having her hair brushed and braided and being dressing up in Ryouta's sister's old dresses. This was a tremendous waste of time that could be spent playing basketball.

(Though, it never gets old, watching Ryouta dash out the front door of his house in a frilly dress, with his hair in two little ponytails and wailing. Daiki laughs every time, even though it makes Ryouta sulk for an hour after he steals Daiki's clothes and washes all the paint and glitter from his face.)

* * *

The year that Ryouta and his family go away for a summer trip is the year that they all turn ten, and instead of staying inside, Satsuki and Daiki go to the park a lot. It's a little bit less interesting to play basketball alone, especially when there's no one else to play with instead of Ryouta, so one afternoon he agrees to go play in the jungle gym with Satsuki, and they end up on the swings.

"Ryou-chan loves you," she tells him.

"Don't be stupid, Satsuki."

When Ryouta finally comes back, Daiki chases him around the backyard with a handful of worms, and puts a frog on Satsuki's head for good measure. They both end up crying and he gets scolded and grounded, but he's not even a little bit sorry.

* * *

They're eleven when Daiki steals Satsuki's first kiss.

The whole kissing thing has been going around the school for a bit, and Daiki had decided that since Satsuki was the least-gross girl he knew, so why shouldn't he kiss her?

"Oi, Satsuki," he says while they're sitting in front of the TV that afternoon. It'd been raining all day, so they'd gone back home after school instead of playing basketball in the park. They were at Satsuki's house because she had the biggest couch and they could all still fit on it.

She turns to look at him to ask what he wants, and he kisses her.

Both she and Ryouta turn bright red for entirely different reasons.

"Dai-chan!" Satsuki shrieks, "How could you!"

Ryouta huddles down on Daiki's other side, looking embarrassed at the display he'd just witnessed.

"Well, you're the least-gross girl I know," Daiki says to her, and screams in a shrill tone that makes Daiki clutch at his ears before she rains angry fists down on any part of Daiki she can.

Ryouta can never leave them to fight it out, so he comes to Daiki's defence whether he deserves it or not – Ryouta thinks he doesn't deserve for him to save him from Satsuki's anger this time – and he dives past Daiki to grab Satsuki around the middle and drag her away from him. "Hitting people's no good, Satsucchi!"

She's caught under Ryouta; it's not as if the three of them have never rough-housed together before, though it'd gotten rarer and rarer as time went on. She looks at Daiki for a moment, her eyes narrowed, and then she smiles.

"It's no good if Ryou-chan's the only one left out," she says sweetly, and then she kisses him.

Ryouta almost bursts into tears, and lets go of Satsuki as if he's been burned before he returns to his spot on the corner of the couch.

(Later, they all agreed to accept that none of the kisses had counted, but Daiki never did forget the way Satsuki had taken Ryouta's first kiss, especially not when Daiki and Ryouta finally started dating the year they all turned seventeen.)

* * *

It's not until they're twelve and in the middle of their last year at elementary school that Daiki finally understands why everyone always told him to look out for Ryouta. After school they're walking to the basketball court, and a man approaches the two of them and tries to get Ryouta to come with him. He talks about a missing puppy and makes promises about rewards for helping him find it, and something about the whole thing feels weird and off to Daiki, so he chucks his ball at the guy's face, grabs Ryouta's hand and runs.

He doesn't want to tell their parents, but he's too scared not to tell anyone. He tells the next best person – he confesses the incident to Satsuki.

"I thought that stuff only happened to girls," he whispers through the window she opened for him when he tapped on it.

Satsuki shrugs. "It's Ryou-chan," she says, as it explains everything. "Don't you think he's really pretty, Dai-chan?"

* * *

Junior high doesn't seem so different than elementary.

Ryouta lands himself in a different class to Daiki and Satsuki, but they spend all their lunch times together, and they all join the basketball club. Ryouta didn't play in elementary, although he'd been more than good enough to. But over the break, Daiki had been working on him, because he didn't want the only times they played together to be the occasions when Daiki didn't have practice. And neither he nor Satsuki had felt okay with the idea of Ryouta being in the going home club alone while they were in the basketball club.

"What if I wanted to play another sport?" Ryouta had asked them both. They'd looked at each other, but it was Satsuki who'd put a hand on her hip and sighed at him.

"Ryou-chan, we both know you have more fun playing basketball with Dai-chan than you do playing any other sport," she said, exasperated. "Stop being silly and go join the basketball club already."

Ryouta had laughed, of course, and done as he was told, because Satsuki always knew best.

And it was good, although there was this one kid that Ryouta pretty much fell into mutual dislike on sight with; Ryouta had been playing with Daiki for years, watching Daiki play against others and playing with him, and he'd absorbed so many things over the years. Daiki's never really thought all that much about how Ryouta could see something and replicate it, because all it had meant before was that any time Ryouta watched him play with the adults in the park, he'd be more fun, even though Ryouta never won. But now he was faced with whispers about him, and Ryouta, and some of the other first years; _prodigies_, they whispered. _Geniuses_. Their potential was considered exceptional, even if they hadn't begun to shine yet.

(Ryouta took his eyes off Daiki for the first time in that gym, committing to memory the movements of the others of their kind, though at the time Daiki hadn't realised it.)

* * *

The year they turn fourteen is the year that Ryouta starts modelling.

He turns up to all their practices still, but it starts to become the case that he rushes straight off afterward. Late night games become a thing of the past, and as the year progresses, Daiki cares less and less that Ryouta's not around as much, caught up in his own problems.

(He tells himself he doesn't care, anyway. Who cares if Ryouta's not around much? It's not like he's as challenging to play against as he should be anyway. Ryouta's talent should have him standing next to Daiki, but instead he's lagging behind.)

* * *

(The year they turn fifteen, Daiki barely speaks to either Satsuki or Ryouta, but Ryouta's decision at the end of the year to follow a basketball scouting to a different school still feels like the most horrific betrayal, and they get in the biggest fight they've ever had.

Ryouta goes to live in the Kaijou dorms and even Satsuki's tearful pleading can't convince Daiki to forgive him.)

* * *

Going to high school without Ryouta is the worst.

Everything feels out of balance just _knowing_ it's only him and Satsuki, even if during the last year at Teikou they had rarely had lunch together and Daiki had skipped a lot of practices and classes, and he was doing the same now. Knowing Ryouta wasn't there, that he was all the way in _fucking Kanagawa_, made him so angry.

_How could he?_

He knew Satsuki would explain if he asked her all the questions he'd thrown at Ryouta's face last year – _does our friendship mean nothing to you? You can just walk away from us like that?_ – but he ignores or changes the subject when she dares to try and talk about his and Ryouta's fight.

(He'd punched his stupid model face and told him to go away if it was so easy for him to leave them behind.)

He doesn't forgive him even when Ryouta finally stops holding out on him and plays against him with everything he's got.

(He should have known that Ryouta'd been lying when he said he couldn't copy him.)

He's not sorry when he pushes Ryouta to the limit and makes him hurt himself.

(He's not.)

And he _certainly_ doesn't feel guilty for not checking up on him after.

(Not even a tiny bit.)

And if he's no longer angry at the idea that Satsuki's talking to Ryouta more openly, well.

That's nobody's business except his own.

* * *

Still, he can't just step aside and let Haizaki get away with hurting Ryouta like that. Even if they're in a fight, even if Ryouta's betrayed them, leaving them behind the way he has, their time together still has meaning to _Daiki_ even if it doesn't have any to Ryouta.

So he takes care of it.

Looking after Ryouta is his job, after all.

* * *

"Ryou-chan's home."

Daiki looks up at the window, where Satsuki is leaning inside. The lock's been broken for years, and Daiki never told, because how would Ryouta or Satsuki get in if it was fixed?

"Get in here," he mutters, looking back down at his magazine. "You're letting the warmth out."

She hauls herself in the window and closes it. "Ryou-chan's home," she repeats. "For Christmas."

"So what?" Daiki grumbles. "Doesn't matter to me."

"Dai-chan," she says, and she's smiling fondly when he looks up from his magazine. "You should go make up with Ryou-chan."

He screws up his face. "It's his fault," he snaps. "He should be making up with me, not me with him."

"Dai-chan." Satsuki sighs, and collapses on the bed near his feet. In retribution, he sticks his cold toes under her back. She pulls a face, but is not distracted. "Dai-chan, don't you think you over-reacted? Ryou-chan was very hurt by the things you said to him. He didn't say any nasty things to you, and you _hit_ him."

"Tattle-tale."

"_Dai-chan_." Her mouth curves in a nostalgic smile. "Hitting people's no good, Daicchi."

Daiki scowls and looks away. "Don't call me that."

"Go make up with Ryou-chan," she says, and reaches over to prod her fingers into his side. "You definitely have more to apologise for than he does. Be the bigger man and go do it."

He gets up, but only to escape her nasty jabbing fingernails. "Whatever," he mutters. "Are you going to stay here, or are you going back to yours?"

She hums. "Bring Ryou-chan back," she answers. "We haven't all been together in ages."

(Ryouta cries when he climbs in his bedroom like he used to and drags him out. Daiki never does properly apologise, but then, with those two, he never really had to.)

* * *

They turn seventeen the year Ryouta confesses to Daiki.

Ryouta was home for summer break after the Inter High and Kaijou's summer training camp. Both he and Satsuki were hell-bent on making up for all the time lost last year while Daiki and Ryouta had been fighting, so despite his previous plans to do nothing but sleep and play basketball and video games, Daiki found himself dragged out shopping (though he couldn't _really_ complain; Ryouta bribed him in food and basketball shoes, so he really got the better end of that deal) and out to the beach with both of them.

(The day had been hot and sunny, and Satsuki had spent most of it alternately sunning herself and cooling herself in the water; in contrast, Ryouta and Daiki had spent most of it chasing each other up and down the beach and in the surf, because Ryouta was still a little shit and dumped water on him, and Daiki couldn't just let him get away with that. He'd managed to both throw and push Ryouta over into the waves multiple times, and Ryouta hadn't managed to do it to him even once; _and_ he shrieked every time Daiki flicked seaweed at him.

He'd suggested playing volleyball, but Daiki knew better than to play any sport other than basketball with him.)

Ryouta's skin is pink with sunburn at the end of the day, and his hair all wavy and messy from the seawater, but there's the biggest smile Daiki's seen on him in years on his face. He'll be whining tomorrow about how much he hurts, but for now he's at his best, spoiled and happy.

Daiki should have known something was up when Satsuki split off when they got back, saying something about holiday homework.

(If he'd have stopped to think about it, Daiki would have remembered Satsuki had already finished it all. As it was, he was kind of a little bit distracted by Ryouta's face.

It's a little disconcerting how not being constantly exposed to it has made him significantly more vulnerable to it.)

Ryouta follows him like a puppy into his house – well, it's pretty standard. Or it used to be, before Ryouta went off to the Kaijou dorms. But Daiki doesn't want to think about that right now. His PS3 is calling his name.

"You playing?" he asks.

Ryouta hums and nods.

They play out three rounds of Call of Duty before Ryouta puts down his controller and turns to look at Daiki.

"Daiki," and this is the moment that he knows he's being serious, because usually Ryouta calls him by that silly nickname. He looks at Ryouta.

"Daiki," Ryouta repeats, and he's looking nervous, "I love you."

He blinks. Once, then twice. Ryouta's sitting there, fidgeting.

"Well, yeah," he says.

Ryouta hits him.

"_Ow_!"

"You're _horrible_," Ryouta wails, getting to his feet with a surprising swiftness, and bolting.

Daiki was stuck on the floor, still kind of blindsided by what had happened, when his phone pretty much exploded.

_DAICHAN_

_TELL ME YOU DIDN'T JUST_

_DAICHAN_

_DAICHAN!_

_Why does Ryouchan like you so much_

_Why are we friends_

_WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU_

Instead of answering her texts, Daiki gets up and goes over to her house.

Her cheeks are flushed with anger and she smacks him when she sees him.

"I didn't know what to do," he says.

"How are you this hopeless?" she wails. "You've had seven years to figure out how to respond when Ryou-chan confessed! I told you seven years ago Ryou-chan loved you!" She makes an angry, frustrated groaning noise.

Daiki scratches the back of his head. "But like... what does he want?"

The look on her face could _probably_ freeze hell. "Dai-chan," she says slowly, "what does anyone want from the person they love? They want to be with them."

"He's already with me," Daiki responds. "You, me, and him, that's how it is. That's how it's always been."

"...you're really stupid, aren't you, Dai-chan," Satsuki mutters, and collapses onto her bed.

"Oi." He sits down on the floor and glares at his hands. The room is quiet for a bit, the only noises being Satsuki's muffled frustrated whines into her pillow.

"It's not enough," she says when she's collected herself enough to deal with him again. "Ryou-chan wants to go on dates and kiss you and do a whole bunch of gross dirty things that I usually prefer not to think about either of you doing. Ryou-chan's always wanted more." When Daiki opens his mouth to say something, she throws one of her soft toys at his head. "I'm not finished."

Daiki scowls.

"Of course Ryou-chan thinks our friendship is precious," she continues, a little quieter. "And he really does treasure it. But he's always been in love with you, Dai-chan, and he can't help but want more. You think he hasn't tried to be okay with just having this special friendship? Of course Ryou-chan has tried to stop loving you."

He doesn't like the sound of that.

Satsuki sighs again. "Go make up with Ryou-chan again," she says, and pushes at his head with her foot. "You're such a jerk, Dai-chan."

"I don't know how to answer him," he grumbles.

She frowns at him. "Dai-chan," she says, "we both know that you're not very good at talking about your feelings, but between punching out Haizaki-kun, and being super mad about Ryou-chan going to another school, so much that you barely spoke to him for a whole year, don't you think it's a little bit late to be playing so coy about your feelings for Ryou-chan?"

"I—what? Don't be ridiculous-"

"Dai-chan, you were staring at him all day today."

"I _wasn't_—"

"Every time a girl came over to ask him to sign something or talk to him you got mad and pushed him into the water as soon as she left."

"I did _not_—"

"You put sunscreen on his back for him."

He stares at her incredulously. "I don't even know why sunscreen matters," he says, "but why do you think this all means I have feelings for him?"

"Don't you?" she asks.

He's not really sure. He's never really thought too much about it. So when the silence extends for too long, Satsuki sighs. "Okay, Dai-chan. I can't believe I have to do this. I want you to think about kissing me. And then I want you to think about kissing Ryou-chan. Can you do that for me?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm a child," Daiki grumbles.

"I'll talk to you like an adult when you act like one," she answers. "Think. I know it's hard for you."

He throws her soft toy back at her.

Daiki hunches over his knees. He didn't like thinking about these kinds of things. They were stupid and unnecessary and complicated.

Satsuki prods the back of his head with her foot. "I know you're not thinking about it."

"Fuck off," he mutters.

She prods the back of his head again. "You're going to sort this out tonight," she tells him. "Because Ryou-chan deserves an honest answer so he can try to let go if you don't feel anything for him."

Fuck, it's so unfair how she always makes sense.

Okay. Kissing. Kissing Satsuki? Nah, he's never really wanted to do that. It's not that she isn't cute, because if someone called her ugly he'd want to beat them up for being wrong and daring to say horrible things about her (he's the only one allowed to be horrible to Satsuki), but kissing Satsuki? It... would probably be weird, right? Right, it would definitely be weird. Probably awkward too.

Would it be weird to kiss Ryouta?

It probably wouldn't be awkward like kissing Satsuki would be.

And he's thought about it a few times.

(There might have been a few very confusing dreams too, but they had been filed away under 'things I'm not going to think about or deal with because it's complicated'.)

"Well, I don't want to kiss you," he tells Satsuki. "But I don't know if I want to kiss Ryouta either."

She shrugs. "Then tell him you don't have feelings for him like that so Ryou-chan can move on."

He still doesn't like the sound of that. Ryouta loving him is a constant in his life, like basketball and Ryouta and Satsuki's existences in his world.

The idea of him loving someone other than him is unpleasant.

"I don't like the idea of that," he mutters into his knees.

"Dai-chan," Satsuki says quietly, "if you can't let someone else have Ryou-chan, then I think it's pretty obvious what you have to do."

"What if I screw up?" he asks. "And ruin everything?"

Satsuki laughs so hard she has to curl up on the bed. "Dai-chan," she wheezes, "you're going to screw up."

He gets up and crosses his arms. "Yeah, thanks."

She shakes her head and grabs his shirt to stop him from leaving in huff. "You'll screw up," she repeats, "but Ryou-chan will too. Because you're both idiots, it's impossible that both of you won't screw up at all. But we've known each other forever, Dai-chan. I'm sure that no matter what happens, the three of us will always be together. You've already made one giant mess with Ryou-chan, and we fixed it in the end, didn't we?" She smiles at him. "Ryou-chan is our best friend, before anything else, so even if you break up, I'm sure we'll be okay in the end."

(So he climbs out Satsuki's window then goes and when puts his head in Ryouta's window – the idiot never locks the window, though whether it's because he forgot or it's because he knew that's where Daiki would come from, Daiki never was sure – he says, "I hear you want to do gross dirty things with me."

Ryouta throws his pillow at his face, and he's been crying that much Daiki can tell, but now he's laughing as well as crying, so Daiki hauls himself into Ryouta's room so he can kiss him.

And it's definitely not weird or awkward at all.)

* * *

Daiki's parents catch the two of them curled up on the couch around the end of summer

(Damn Ryouta's stupid face. Daiki was distracted, and didn't want to be thinking about going back to school, where Ryouta _wasn't_, and Ryouta going back to Kaijou's dorms, and not being able to see him all the time. God, Ryouta always had to be so much work, didn't he? So he'd been distracting himself by kissing him. And forgot that his parents were going to come home soon.

Oops.)

As his parents call out that they're home, they panic even as they call out in response, and in their haste to disentangle from each other, they both end up on the floor with a heavy thud, Ryouta on top of Daiki.

Honestly, even if they'd managed to _not_ end up in such a compromising position, Ryouta still _looked_ like he'd been thoroughly kissed, with messy hair where Daiki had slid his hands through it and grabbed it, and red lips, and the colour in his cheeks.

It's not really a surprise that Daiki's parents don't believe that they were just rough-housing.

They hadn't really prepared for this to happen so soon. Ryouta fidgets on the couch as Daiki's parents call his, and as they can hear the muffled sound of voices from the kitchen.

"You have a scholarship," Daiki reminds Ryouta. "And a career of your own. You're going to be fine."

"Idiot," Ryouta mutters, refusing to look at him. "I'm more worried about you than about me."

"I'll be fine," Daiki tells him. "I've got a scholarship too, and Touou has dorms if worst comes to worst."

When their parents call them in, Ryouta's mouth sets in a determined line, and Daiki has a stunning moment of realisation, because he really can't see himself giving up this stupid boy for anything.

He smacks him upside the head for lack of knowing anything better to do, and grabs his hand as they walk in the door.

(Nothing much got resolved that night, but the way Ryouta had held on tight and sure to Daiki's hand and said _"I don't care what you think, I love Daiki and I'm not going to break up with him,_" was burned into Daiki's memory.

It wouldn't be until later that their parents would separately confess to each of them that they'd expected one of them to end up with Satsuki, rather than with each other.

Though Ryouta's parents admitted that, in hindsight, they probably should have seen this coming.)


End file.
